How you’d like to enjoy a very shallow bubble bath in your kitchen?
Not exactly the ideal place to have a bubble bath in the first place, but this is what poor 30-year-old Ms Chen from Block 26 on Toa Payoh East Road had to endure, no thanks to a piping issue that leaks wastewater filled with soap bubbles into her kitchen every so often!
Wastewater backflow floods kitchen floor
Since 14 May, Ms Chen’s kitchen is frequently flooded by wastewater that’s filled with soap bubbles whenever her upstairs neighbours use copious amounts of water.
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According to her, “I found that as long as there are two or more households upstairs doing laundry at the same time, my kitchen will have a problem of wastewater backflow.”
She did some investigating of her own and discovered that if more units upstairs use water and that the volume of the resulting wastewater is huge, then her kitchen will be even more flooded.
What’s worse is that the soapy wastewater also comes with some nasty surprises, like dead cockroaches and bugs.
Sometimes, she can see oil patches floating on top of the wastewater as well.
“I heard a gurgling sound just one second before the wastewater will start to flood onto my kitchen floor,” she added.
Unlike the tide, this backflow of wastewater doesn’t stick around too long.
Usually, it will dissipate within a few seconds, leaving a puddle of soapy water behind.
If it’s more serious, it’ll take a few minutes.
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“This has brought a lot of inconvenience to our lives,” Ms Chen sighed, adding that she has already reported the issue to the town council.
The town council said they would send someone to check the pipes on Saturday.
She also pointed out that her family has lived in Toa Payoh for more than 20 years and that she has encountered this issue twice before, once in 2015 and another in 2017.
Town council to install an extra drainage pipe
The spokesperson of the Bishan-Toa Payoh Town Council responded to an inquiry from a reporter from LianHe WanBao (联合晚报), stating that the wastewater backflow was caused by a blockage of the drainage pipe.
The council had to get someone to unblock the water pipes for the residents during the three times they were called to the place to resolve the issue.
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For a more permanent solution however, the town council has decided to install an additional drainage pipe in Ms Chen’s house this Saturday.
A retired plumber who lived on the second floor, Mr Cai, commented that the extra drainage pipe helped to solve his backflow issue 3 years ago.
“The HDBs here are more than 40 years old. In the past, the diameter of the water pipe was small and the wastewater flow was slow, so this problem occurred. The new external water pipe has a larger diameter and so the wastewater flow is much faster.”
Also, do you know that the “marble dropping” sounds you hear in HDB flats at night could be caused by pipes, too? Watch this video to the end and you’d understand:
Featured Image: Google Maps
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